I've been looking at last year's schedule for my Indiana State team and I see no evidence that the MVC actually schedules using travel partners. Like there was instance where we played a home game, then played at Drake, just to come back home. If travel partners was actually a real thing we would have played at UNI on the same trip.

So that brings me back to this point. Why does Missouri State need a travel partner, particularly if we are not utilizing it in our schedules already? Our conference is more compact now without Wichita and with Valparaiso. Why can't we just add Murray State and be done with it? I'm starting to think this travel partner thing was just an excuse to be lazy on scheduling or to just stick at the status quo of 10 teams in the conference. Whenever Indiana State is taking a trip to Drake without playing any other road games in that trip it makes me think this travel partner thing is a bunch of nonsense. There's no way an added trip to any MVC school is costing anyone a ton of money in travel. Murray State would barely add travel. I know that scheduling would be harder, but how difficult is it really?

The MWC plays with 11 and the MWC apparently said they didn't want NM ST and/or Idaho. Why should we be any different? If we're not 100% sure about a team we need to just go to 11. We shouldn't just add to make scheduling easier. That is a terrible reason to add someone. You can't take back a bad add. But Murray State is too good of an addition not to add them for the 2018 season. Everyone says that Belmont and St Louis needs to wake up, but really I think the leadership in our conference are the ones that need to wake up. You can't just pass up on a team like Murray State that really wants in the conference over "travel partners, difficult scheduling, and public/private split". The travel in our conference is super easy. If Chicago State can travel all over the place when they are on the verge of shutting down, then we can all travel to Northern Iowa, Missouri State, and Murray State without having another road game while we're out, just like we're already doing.

Re: If we go to 12 who do you want (choose 2) poll?

mvfcfan wrote:I've been looking at last year's schedule for my Indiana State team and I see no evidence that the MVC actually schedules using travel partners. Like there was instance where we played a home game, then played at Drake, just to come back home. If travel partners was actually a real thing we would have played at UNI on the same trip.

So that brings me back to this point. Why does Missouri State need a travel partner, particularly if we are not utilizing it in our schedules already? Our conference is more compact now without Wichita and with Valparaiso. Why can't we just add Murray State and be done with it? I'm starting to think this travel partner thing was just an excuse to be lazy on scheduling or to just stick at the status quo of 10 teams in the conference. Whenever Indiana State is taking a trip to Drake without playing any other road games in that trip it makes me think this travel partner thing is a bunch of nonsense. There's no way an added trip to any MVC school is costing anyone a ton of money in travel. Murray State would barely add travel. I know that scheduling would be harder, but how difficult is it really?

The MWC plays with 11 and the MWC apparently said they didn't want NM ST and/or Idaho. Why should we be any different? If we're not 100% sure about a team we need to just go to 11. We shouldn't just add to make scheduling easier. That is a terrible reason to add someone. You can't take back a bad add. But Murray State is too good of an addition not to add them for the 2018 season. Everyone says that Belmont and St Louis needs to wake up, but really I think the leadership in our conference are the ones that need to wake up. You can't just pass up on a team like Murray State that really wants in the conference over "travel partners, difficult scheduling, and public/private split". The travel in our conference is super easy. If Chicago State can travel all over the place when they are on the verge of shutting down, then we can all travel to Northern Iowa, Missouri State, and Murray State without having another road game while we're out, just like we're already doing.

Travel partners are only used in VB and WBB. It has no impact on mens basketball, tennis, swimming, track and field, soccer, or any other sport.

It is utilized in these two sports since they are not revenue sports. UNI VB makes money but I can't think there are any other women programs that actually make money, or even break even. These sports also don't have TV contracts

This issue does not exist in mens basketball. I'd assume most/all mens programs make money, or at least break even. We also have TV contracts that dictate what our schedule can/does look like.

As I laid out there, MSU is on an island no matter what. It's the "sad" reality of it. There is not a school we could add, outside of ORU or UMKC, that would change that. Neither of those is attractive. Thus the 12th MUST be an addition of strength of basketball program, stability (meaning maybe isn't another football school and not a private) and not geography.

So basically we won't add Murray State because of women's basketball and volleyball? That seems like a really stupid reason not to add a quality men's basketball program. Like I said, I think our leadership in this conference really needs to wake up. This isn't an SLU or a Belmont issue, this is a Doug Elgin / university presidents' issue. Is it really that bad having to send the volleyball team and women's basketball team to Missouri State? After all Missouri State is already sending all of their teams to all of our schools anyways. The travel in our league isn't even that bad, especially now that both Wichita and Creighton are gone.

This is probably wishful thinking, but what I really hope is that we already told Murray State that they are in and that we just needed another year to analyze more schools because we wanted to get the best number 12 possible. If that was the conversation behind closed doors then I am okay with that. But I think whoever we add needs to be added by no later than the Spring for the 2018-19 season, otherwise I see us just staying at 10.

Yes, Murray State was left out because there wasn't a suitable 12th according to the university presidents. They are also opposed to 11 for some unknown reason. The B1G ran at 11 for decades. The MWC is at 11. A large part of the issue with 11 is the travel partner issue for VB and WBB. Hideous.

Honstestly 11 with a 20 game conference schedule makes sense right now. The B1G adopted a 20 game conference schedule starting in 2018. OOC games in the upper midwest, even buy games are going to become even more difficult.

Well here's what would have made more sense for the MVC to announce if it wasn't just a BS excuse.

"We have invited Valparaiso University to become of a full member starting on July 1st, 2017. Murray State University has also received an invite to become a full member starting on July 1st, 2018. We will have the search committee continue to search for another potential member to add for the 2018 season and that decision will be announced by next Spring."

Would that really have been that difficult? It would have benefited Murray State as well because then they could of gave the OVC a heads up that they were planning on leaving and then their exit fee wouldn't be as high. It also would have gave the MVFC a heads up so that they could adjust the football schedule for the 2018 season (and yes it could have been done).

MissouriValleyUnite wrote:Yeah, the MAAC also has 11 and Southland/MEAC have 13. Those are conferences with less money making an odd number work. I'm starting to wonder if that excuse was BS.

Well, the MAAC is so geographically compact that an odd number can work travel-wise. Southland/MEAC are at the bottom of D1....they have no choice because there's no schools to add.

Mountain West is the one that raises my eyebrow. Perhaps they're so sprawling that they like having a couple of bye dates built into their schedule, and buses might be out of the question altogether for them.

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uniftw wrote:Yes, Murray State was left out because there wasn't a suitable 12th according to the university presidents. They are also opposed to 11 for some unknown reason. The B1G ran at 11 for decades. The MWC is at 11. A large part of the issue with 11 is the travel partner issue for VB and WBB. Hideous.

Honstestly 11 with a 20 game conference schedule makes sense right now. The B1G adopted a 20 game conference schedule starting in 2018. OOC games in the upper midwest, even buy games are going to become even more difficult.

Why 11 is such an issue is something I can't figure out.

This. The most important thing should be making the conference as strong as possible in men's basketball. Murray State makes this league stronger. There is no other realistic program out there that can say that. Logistics (and I might add.....manageable logistics that other leagues are already dealing with) should not trump men's basketball conference strength. That would be silly. Sometimes you need to think just a little bit outside the box.

A 20-game schedule would be difficult to work, but I really think it does our league a favor. Most schools are playing D2 and NAIA games anyway, and are having difficulty filling their schedule. This alleviates that problem and allows us to bring in a program that would do nothing but help the league.

Do people really think that the two games that we'd lose in the non-con would be the non D-1 games and the cupcake games? No. We'd lose the home-and-homes with mid majors (or at least the precious few that we do have).

Going from 18 to 20 conference games means adding 1 home game and 1 road game. To balance that, we'd have to get rid of 1 road game and 1 home game from our non-cons, or get rid of 2 home games and sacrifice a home gate. If we sacrifice a road game, it's either as part of a home-and-home with another like school, or a buy game against a quality opponent. Giving up either of those is a SoS problem. And I'll let all the armchair ADs out there talk about the importance of having enough home gates in a season to help revenue.

UNI might be the exception to this - for example they have 7 home games in the non-con, so going from 16 home gates to 15 is manageable for them. Illinois St on the other hand has 5 home games in the non-con this year. Could they afford to go from 14 to 13 home gates for a year?

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I've been watching some games and doing some more thinking on this and I really think we need to get North Dakota State and South Dakota State in the league. I watched their championship game they played against each other in 2016 and both schools have good programs and have very good fanbases. The game atmosphere in this game was great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbXqyHJTP1Q

Both NDSU and SDSU are the only two teams from the Summit League to make the NCAA tournament since 2011 (SDSU 4 times, NDSU twice). NDSU also has a NCAA tournament win. SDSU had some close calls.

Overall I think these are the best two adds we can get. I like Murray State, but I just think NDSU and SDSU overall are probably better adds for the conference going forward, especially if we have to add 2 teams for scheduling, travel partners, etc. Really adding the XDSU's is long overdue. Yeah there's added travel, but you either want to improve the conference or you don't. They are the best chance we have of getting back to being a two bid league and they are really the only two schools I can see coming in and winning the league year after year. The XDSU's are also in a spot where they would be long term members. They are pretty well in safe enough locations that they would probably never get poached.

While I think there are solid reasons why an addition of the Dakota's make sense and have no problem if we go that way; one of the rationales is not that they could help make us a 2 bid league in the NCAA MBB Tourney. Simply, if a team has not been getting at large bids now, joining the Valley isn't gonna all of a sudden get them there. The only school I think that is reasonably[ and they probably aren't either] in our ability to perhaps attract, and has shown an ability to get at large bids is SLU. And as has been discussed here, they probably aren't willing to consider the MVC until or unless the A-10 loses other schools and they are not one of the ones swept into the Big East.

So I guess I'm saying, Dakota's fine; but don't fool yourselves that that is a ticket to multiple bids. There potential to do so is no better or worse than any number of schools, which means it is severely limited. Again I think there will be years the MVC has a chance at multiple bids if a team outside the conference tourney champion has had the ability to via their non-con schedule to schedule and win about 4-5 top 100 games, wins at least 14 games in conference, and doesn't have more than a loss or 2 above the 150 RPI . But that's true of any mid major team. But first scheduling that, and then winning against it given most of those games will be either roadies or neutral court games is going to be rare.

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